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Looking for Sustainability ideas

I thought I find a way to keep costs down while still trying to stay eco-friendly. Trying to keep striving for sustainability. This a record of that journey.Sometimes blunt and straight forward then sometimes sarcastic

This frugal crunchy hipster single momma is doing what she can to save Mother Earth while not breaking the bank!

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Small steps: BIG ripples

At work I used to be able to take a water bottle to the register and drink from it as I needed. But then a water bottle that most of my fellow workers use is the bottle of water we sell. I really hate having the bottle fall over and leak out. And the fact that it is huge and is hard to find a out of the way spot for it. SO I started to bring my water in a reusable bottle. It was smaller. I could wash it and place in my little cubby in a great spot to keep it out of the way. Yea fellow workers looked at me and said wow what a cute water bottle. I said yea I like the taste of my filter water better. Plus it is cheaper and less land fill. I started to see a couple of my fellow cashier doing the same thing. One told me that hey the fountain is free so I can fill up my water bottle and not have to pay for another bottle of water... Because if they think about it they may only be 75 cents but if they work 5 day a week that is $3.75 a week if you don't buy more than one......$15.94 a month, $191.25 a year (that includes one week vacation.) gee I could use that almost 200 dollars a year if you want to throw your money away!! I even fill your bottle up with tap water if you ask nicely.

I got a promotion and now work full time!! Yea. I now have to take a half an hour lunch break. So I am a single mom and money is mostly for bills... I started to bring my lunch. I used a old 6 pack cooler soft pack. Still wonder if it the plastic that will leak poison into my food but still researching to see (maybe I will just make a lunch bag on my day off) but I have gone one more step from that. I pack in reusable containers. I found at the dollar store a sandwich container that I get wow that's cute when they walk by me when I am eating. So the company put in shelves so we could put our lunch bogs/ boxes etc in the lunch room. It is getting fuller by the day with peoples bags and lunch boxes. Even one co-worker asked that a cooler not a lunch box huh? I told her yes it is. So She started to bring her lunch in her soft sided cooler....
Even the fact that some of my stuff that I pack my lunch are in reusable containers, I do use glass reused ( not recycled) containers to keep my stuff it........ Wow a glass jar that you should put in the recycling bin (oh yea we do have recycle bins at work!) you use for food to heat up in microwave... I can hear Mariam right now teasing me " who would have thogght it! That pretty cool idea... "

So they see they learn and I am making small step to lessen my carbon footprint and seeing the ripples of others learning from me.... and I smile......... I just hope that the ripple will get bigger by the day.